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At least 109 records · Page 6

A Compilation of Global Bio-Optical in Situ Data for Ocean Colour Satellite Applications – Version Three

A global in situ data set for validation of ocean colour products from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) is presented. This version of the compilation, starting in 1997, now extends to 2021, which is important for the validation of the most recent satellite optical sensors such as Sentinel 3B OLCI and NOAA-20 VIIRS. The data set comprises in situ observations of the following variables: spectral remote-sensing reflectance, concentration of chlorophyll-a, spectral inherent optical properties, spectral diffuse attenuation coefficient, and total suspended matter. Data were obtained from multi-project archives acquired via open internet services or from individual projects acquired directly from data providers. Methodologies were implemented for homogenization, quality control, and merging of all data. Minimal changes were made on the original data, other than conversion to a standard format, elimination of some points, after quality control and averaging of observations that were close in time and space. The result is a merged table available in text format. Overall, the size of the data set grew with 148 432 rows, with each row representing a unique station in space and time (cf. 136 250 rows in previous version; Valente et al., 2019). Observations of remote-sensing reflectance increased to 68 641 (cf. 59 781 in previous version; Valente et al., 2019). There was also a near tenfold increase in chlorophyll data since 2016. Metadata of each in situ measurement (original source, cruise or experiment, principal investigator) are included in the final table. By making the metadata available, provenance is better documented and it is also possible to analyse each set of data separately.

ocean color↗

Cloud Properties Derived From GOES-7 for Spring 1994 ARM Intensive Observing Period Using Version 1.0.0 of ARM Satellite Data Analysis Program

This document describes the initial formulation (Version 1.0.0) of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program satellite data analysis procedures. Techniques are presented for calibrating geostationary satellite data with Sun synchronous satellite radiances and for converting narrowband radiances to top-of-the-atmosphere fluxes and albedos. A methodology is documented for combining geostationary visible and infrared radiances with surface-based temperature observations to derive cloud amount, optical depth, height, thickness, temperature, and albedo. The analysis is limited to two grids centered over the ARM Southern Great Plains central facility in north-central Oklahoma. Daytime data taken during 5 Apr. - 1 May 1994, were analyzed on the 0.3 deg and 0.5 deg latitude-longitude grids that cover areas of 0.9 deg x 0.9 deg and 10 deg x 14 deg, respectively. Conditions ranging from scattered low cumulus to thin cirrus and thick cumulonimbus occurred during the study period. Detailed comparisons with hourly surface observations indicate that the mean cloudiness is within a few percent of the surface-derived sky cover. Formats of the results are also provided. The data can be accessed through the World Wide Web computer network.

Minnis, Patrick↗

Satellite estimates of shortwave surface radiation and atmospheric meteorology for the BOREAS experiment region

This report provides background data for the Boreal Ecosystem Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) sites, including daily, seasonal, interannual, and spatial variability of shortwave (SW) radiation at the Earth's surface. This background data, from the Version 1.1 SW data set, was provided by the Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Climatology Project established by the World Climate Research Program (WCRP).

Moats, C. D.↗

TPSAS-NF1676L-32505-DND

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) instrument, installed on the International Space Station (ISS), has completed over a year of data collection and production of science data products, including the newly released version 5.1 data product. The SAGE III/ISS is a solar and lunar occultation instrument, scanning the light from the sun and moon, through the limb (edge) of the Earth's atmosphere. It was launched in February 2017 and provides data from June 2017 to the present. It continues SAGE's legacy of ozone, aerosol and water vapor profile measurements and extends the lengthy records for monitoring constituents important for understanding stratospheric ozone trends. This presentation shows the preliminary validation results of comparing SAGE III/ISS ozone vertical profiles with those of mission funded ozone sondes, associated lidar, and comparisons with other correlative data.

Susan Kizer↗

Aerosol Correction for Improving OMPS/LP Ozone Retrieval

The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite Limb Profiler (OMPS-LP) on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite was launched on Oct. 28, 2011. Limb profilers measures the radiance scattered from the Earth's atmospheric in limb viewing mode from 290 to 1000 nm and infer ozone profiles from tropopause to 60 km. The recently released OMPS-LP Version 2 data product contains the first publicly released ozone profiles retrievals, and these are now available for the entire OMPS mission, which extends from April, 2012. The Version 2 data product retrievals incorporate several important improvements to the algorithm. One of the primary changes is to turn off the aerosol retrieval module. The aerosol profiles retrieved inside the ozone code was not helping the ozone retrieval and was adding noise and other artifacts. Aerosols including polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) and polar mesospheric clouds (PMC) have a detectable effect on OMPS-LP data. Our results show that ignoring the aerosol contribution would produce an ozone density bias of up to 10 percent in the region of maximum aerosol extinction. Therefore, aerosol correction is needed to improve the quality of the retrieved ozone concentration profile. We provide Aerosol Scattering Index (ASI) for detecting aerosols-PMC-PSC, defined as ln(Im-Ic) normalized at 45km, where Im is the measured radiance and Ic is the calculated radiance assuming no aerosols. Since ASI varies with wavelengths, latitude and altitude, we can start by assuming no aerosol profiles in calculating the ASIs and then use the aerosol profile to see if it significantly reduces the residuals. We also discuss the effect of aerosol size distribution on the ozone profile retrieval process. Finally, we present an aerosol-PMC-PSC correction scheme.

OMPS/LP↗

The Version 8.6 SBUV Ozone Data Record: An Overview

Under a NASA program to produce long-term data records from instruments on multiple satellites, data from a series of nine Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV and SBUV2) instruments have been re-processed to create a coherent ozone time series. Data from the BUV instrument on Nimbus 4, SBUV on Nimbus 7, and SBUV2 instruments on NOAA 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, and 19 covering the period 1970-1972 and 1979-2011 were used to create a long-term data set. The goal is an ozone Earth Science Data Record - a consistent, calibrated ozone time series that can be used for trend analyses and other studies. In order to create this ozone data set, the radiances were adjusted and used to re-process the entire data records for each of the nine instruments. Inter-instrument comparisons during periods of overlap as well as comparisons with data from other satellite and ground-based instruments were used to evaluate the consistency of the record and make calibration adjustments as needed. Additional improvements in this version 8.6 processing included the use of the Brion, Daumont, and Malicet ozone cross sections, and a cloud-height climatology derived from Aura OMI measurements. Validation of the re-processed ozone shows that total column ozone is consistent with the Brewer Dobson network to within about 1 for the new time series. Comparisons with MLS, SAGE, sondes, and lidar show that ozone at individual levels in the stratosphere is generally consistent to within 5 percent.

ozone↗

Data Assimilation Experiments using Quality Controlled AIRS Version 5 Temperature Soundings

The AIRS Science Team Version 5 retrieval algorithm has been finalized and is now operational at the Goddard DAAC in the processing (and reprocessing) of all AlRS data. Version 5 contains accurate case-by-case error estimates for most derived products, which are also used for quality control. We have conducted forecast impact experiments assimilating AlRS quality controlled temperature profiles using the NASA GEOS-5 data assimilation system, consisting of the NCEP GSI analysis coupled with the NASA FVGCM. Assimilation of quality controlled temperature profiles resulted in significantly improved forecast skill in both the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere Extra-Tropics, compared to that obtained from analyses obtained when all data used operationally by NCEP except for AlRS data is assimilated. Experiments using different Quality Control thresholds for assimilation of AlRS temperature retrievals showed that a medium quality control threshold performed better than a tighter threshold, which provided better overall sounding accuracy; or a looser threshold, which provided better spatial coverage of accepted soundings. We are conducting more experiments to further optimize this balance of spatial coverage and sounding accuracy from the data assimilation perspective. In all cases, temperature soundings were assimilated well below cloud level in partially cloudy cases. The positive impact of assimilating AlRS derived atmospheric temperatures all but vanished when only AIRS stratospheric temperatures were assimilated. Forecast skill resulting from assimilation of AlRS radiances uncontaminated by clouds, instead of AlRS temperature soundings, was only slightly better than that resulting from assimilation of only stratospheric AlRS temperatures. This reduction in forecast skill is most likely the result of significant loss of tropospheric information when only AIRS radiances unaffected by clouds are used in the data assimilation process.

Susskind, Joel↗

A Comparison of TOMS Version 8 Total Column Ozone Data with Data from Groundstations

The Nimbus-7 and Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) data have been reprocessed with a new retrieval algorithm, (Version 8) and an updated calibration procedure. These data have been systematically compared to total ozone data from Brewer and Dobson spectrophotometers for 73 individual ground stations. The comparisons were made as a function of latitude, solar zenith angle, reflectivity and total ozone. Results show that the accuracy of the TOMS retrieval'is much improved when aerosols are present in the atmosphere, when snow/ice and sea glint are present, and when ozone in the northern hemisphere is extremely low. TOMS overpass data are derived from the single TOMS best match measurement, almost always located within one degree of the ground station and usually made within an hour of local noon. The version 8 Earth Probe TOMS ozone values have decreased by an average of about 1% due to a much better understanding of the calibration of the instrument. The remaining differences between TOMS and ground stations suggest that there are still small errors in the TOMS retrievals. But if TOMS is used as a transfer standard to compare ground stations, the large station-to-station differences suggest the possibility of significant instrument errors at some ground stations.

Labow, G. J.↗

Manual for Getdata Version 3.1: a FORTRAN Utility Program for Time History Data

This report documents version 3.1 of the GetData computer program. GetData is a utility program for manipulating files of time history data, i.e., data giving the values of parameters as functions of time. The most fundamental capability of GetData is extracting selected signals and time segments from an input file and writing the selected data to an output file. Other capabilities include converting file formats, merging data from several input files, time skewing, interpolating to common output times, and generating calculated output signals as functions of the input signals. This report also documents the interface standards for the subroutines used by GetData to read and write the time history files. All interface to the data files is through these subroutines, keeping the main body of GetData independent of the precise details of the file formats. Different file formats can be supported by changes restricted to these subroutines. Other computer programs conforming to the interface standards can call the same subroutines to read and write files in compatible formats.

Maine, Richard E.↗

The Relationship of Forest Fires Detected by MODIS and SRTM Derived Topographic Features in Central Siberia

Fires are a common occurrence in the Siberian boreal forest. The MOD14 Thermal anomalies product of the Terra MODIS Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer) product set is designed to detect thermal anomalies (i.e. hotspots or fires) on the Earth's surface. Recent field studies showed a dependence of fire occurrence on topography. In this study MODIS thermal anomaly data and SRTM topography data were merged and analyzed to evaluate if forest fires are more likely to occur at certain combinations of elevation, slope and aspect. Using the satellite data over a large area can lead to better understanding how topography and forest fires are related. The study area covers a 2.5 Million krn(exp 2) portion of the Central Siberian southern taiga from 72 deg to 110 deg East and from 50 deg to 60 deg North. About 57% of the study area is forested and 80% of the forest grows between 200 and 1000 m. Forests with pine (Pinus sylvestris), larch (Larix sibirica, L. gmelinii), Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica), spruce (Picea obovata.) and fir (Abies sibirica) cover most of the landscape. Deciduous stands with birch (Betula pendula, B. pubescens) and aspen (Populus tremula) cover the areas of lower elevation in this region. The climate of this area is distinctly continental with long, cold winters and short hot summers. The tree line in this part of the world is around 1500 m in elevation with alpine tundra, snow and ice fields and rock outcrops extending up to over 3800 m. A 500 m resolution landcover map was developed using 2001 MODIS MOD13 Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Middle Infrared (MIR) products for seven 16-day periods. The classification accuracy was over 87%. The SRTM version 2 data, which is distributed in 1 degree by 1 degree tiles were mosaiced using the ENVI software. In this study, only those MODIS pixels were used that were flagged as "nominal or high confidence fire" by the MODIS fire product team. Using MODIS data from the years 2000 to 2005 along with the improved Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) version 2 data at 100 m resolution, the distribution of hot spots was examined by elevation, slope and aspect as well as by forest type. The results show that more forest area burns at lower elevations but a larger percentage of the available forest area burns at higher elevations. This is probably because steep slopes occur at higher elevations. Fires are only more common on slopes with a southern exposure if the slope is steeper than 15 degrees. The next step in this study will be to monitor areas where the risk of fire is high (steep slopes with a southern exposure) and to refine this method by incorporating anthropogenic features for more accurate fire disturbance monitoring.

Ranson, Jon K.↗

Ozone depletion at northern and southern latitudes derived from January 1979 to December 1991 Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer data

An extended version of the Nimbus 7/TOMS ozone data set from the period January 1, 1979 to December 31, 1991 is presented. It is shown that the ozone-trend data indicate that regions of enhanced ozone depletion rates have formed at middle and high latitudes during recent years. The seasonal dependence and geographical extent of the enhanced ozone-depletion rates for the Northern and Southern hemispheres are examined. The variability of the long-term ozone trend determination is discussed via consideration of the differences among 11-, 12-, and 13-yr trend calculations. The effects of the Mount Pinatubo eruption and other volcanic eruptions on the TOMS equatorial zonal average ozone measurements, and its influence on long-term trend determinations are discussed. On the basis of a determination of the aerosol phase function using TOMS data, the effect of stratospheric aerosols on determination of ozone amounts from TOMS are shown to be less than 1 percent.

Herman, J. R.↗

Usability of an Updated Version of the Supplemental Data Service Provider-Consolidated Dashboard for Supporting Uncrewed Aircraft System Traffic Management

The Supplemental Data Service Provider-Consolidated Dashboard (SDSP-CD) is a preflight planning user interface (UI) that serves to aid operators when drafting routes for small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUASs). The primary function of the SDSP-CD is to identify hazards that an sUAS may encounter along a proposed flight path and assess the severity of these risks. A usability study was conducted on an updated version of the SDSP-CD to determine if the most recent iterations made to the system improved objective performance and subjective user experience. There are two main components of the SDSP-CD interface: (1) the dashboard and (2) the interactive map. The dashboard provides users with hazard and vehicle limitations for each sUAS in their fleet while the map contains a graphical representation of each vehicle’s route, hazard details, and geographic information. A series of preflight risk-assessment questions and tasks were developed to examine how participants interact with the updated version of the SDSP-CD. Additionally, a new service that measures vertiport congestion was developed and included as one of the services that was tested. In the present study, participants were trained to use the SDSP-CD and then completed two simulated scenarios during which they performed a variety of tasks, responded to questions, and completed surveys. The two scenarios developed for the present study were the Package Delivery and Hurricane Preparation scenarios. The Package Delivery scenario involved a fleet of four sUASs delivering low-stakes items (e.g., lunches and snacks) to people in a fictitious city. The Hurricane Preparation scenario involved a fleet of 11 sUASs delivering a range of supplies (from medicine to boardgames) to employees stranded at an office park due to road closures caused by an impending hurricane. Participants assumed the role of a fleet manager during both scenarios and were responsible for managing the sUASs in their fleet. Questions included those with objectively correct responses, open-ended strategy responses, and subjective user experience feedback. It was found that participants were largely successful at using the SDSP-CD interface to answer questions with objectively correct responses. Additionally, participants were able to use reasoning and logic based on the information available in the SDSP-CD to determine the cause of various risks and what actions they would consider taking. Finally, although participants reported that there were elements of the UI that could be improved, overall feedback pertaining to user experience suggested that the SDSP-CD concept is viable.

usability testing↗

The CDF software package

The concepts that are fundamental to the new Common Data Format are outlined. With Pilot Climate Data System (PCDS) Version 4.0, the Common Data Format (CDF) will supersede the Climate Data File (also CDF) or earlier versions. This new format incorporates generalizations in both design and terminology that make it applicable to multidisciplinary data sets. Furthermore, the new CDF will be made available to programmers as a software package that shields them from the low-level details of file formats. The CDF interface routines create an abstract conceptual environment for the scientific programmer. The principle concept for visualizing a CDF is known as the basic grid. A basic grid is an n-dimensional block by means of which a CDF is constructed. The size of the block may vary from one CDF to another, but is consistent within any individual CDF. Thus, the basic grid serves as a fundamental uniform building block for a CDF. The number of grid dimensions and the size of each dimension are chosen by the scientist/programmer to represent the patterns by which data are structured. The uniform grid structure appears to the programmer to be propagated into each record for each variable. The CDF stores a variable value for each lattice point of the grid for each record. These data values are inserted and retrieved simply by specifying the variable's identifier, a record number, and the indices that specify the lattice point of interest.

Wilson, C. E.↗

CALIPSO IIR Version 2 Level 1b Calibrated Radiances: Analysis and Reduction of Residual Biases in the Northern Hemisphere

Version 2 of the Level 1b calibrated radiances of the Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR) on board the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite has been released recently. This new version incorporates corrections of small but systematic seasonal calibration biases previously revealed in Version 1 data products mostly north of 30° N. These biases – of different amplitudes in the three IIR channels 8.65 µm (IIR1), 10.6 µm (IIR2), and 12.05 µm (IIR3) – were made apparent by a striping effect in images of IIR inter-channel brightness temperature differences (BTDs) and through seasonal warm biases of nighttime IIR brightness temperatures in the 30–60° N latitude range. The latter were highlighted through observed and simulated comparisons with similar channels of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Aqua spacecraft. To characterize the calibration biases affecting Version 1 data, a semi-empirical approach is developed, which is based on the in-depth analysis of the IIR internal calibration procedure in conjunction with observations such as statistical comparisons with similar MODIS/Aqua channels. Two types of calibration biases are revealed: an equalization bias affecting part of the individual IIR images and a global bias affecting the radiometric level of each image. These biases are observed only when the temperature of the instrument increases, and they are found to be functions of elapsed time since night-to-day transition, regardless of the season. Correction coefficients of Version 1 radiances could thus be defined and implemented in the Version 2 code. As a result, the striping effect seen in Version 1 is significantly attenuated in Version 2. Systematic discrepancies between nighttime and daytime IIR–MODIS BTDs in the 30–60° N latitude range in summer are reduced from 0.2 K in Version 1 to 0.1 K in Version 2 for IIR1–MODIS29. For IIR2–MODIS31 and IIR3–MODIS32, they are reduced from 0.4 K to close to zero, except for IIR3–MODIS32 in June, where the night-minus-day difference is around −0.1 K.

Garnier, Anne↗

Standardizing Interfaces for External Access to Data and Processing for the NASA Ozone Product Evaluation and Test Element (PEATE)

NASA's traditional science data processing systems have focused on specific missions, and providing data access, processing and services to the funded science teams of those specific missions. Recently NASA has been modifying this stance, changing the focus from Missions to Measurements. Where a specific Mission has a discrete beginning and end, the Measurement considers long term data continuity across multiple missions. Total Column Ozone, a critical measurement of atmospheric composition, has been monitored for'decades on a series of Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instruments. Some important European missions also monitor ozone, including the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) and SCIAMACHY. With the U.S.IEuropean cooperative launch of the Dutch Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA Aura satellite, and the GOME-2 instrumental on MetOp, the ozone monitoring record has been further extended. In conjunction with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA is now preparing to evaluate data and algorithms for the next generation Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) which will launch on the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) in 2010. NASA is constructing the Science Data Segment (SDS) which is comprised of several elements to evaluate the various NPP data products and algorithms. The NPP SDS Ozone Product Evaluation and Test Element (PEATE) will build on the heritage of the TOMS and OM1 mission based processing systems. The overall measurement based system that will encompass these efforts is the Atmospheric Composition Processing System (ACPS). We have extended the system to include access to publically available data sets from other instruments where feasible, including non-NASA missions as appropriate. The heritage system was largely monolithic providing a very controlled processing flow from data.ingest of satellite data to the ultimate archive of specific operational data products. The ACPS allows more open access with standard protocols including HTTP, SOAPIXML, RSS and various REST incarnations. External entities can be granted access to various modules within the system, including an extended data archive, metadata searching, production planning and processing. Data access is provided with very fine grained access control. It is possible to easily designate certain datasets as being available to the public, or restricted to groups of researchers, or limited strictly to the originator. This can be used, for example, to release one's best validated data to the public, but restrict the "new version" of data processed with a new, unproven algorithm until it is ready. Similarly, the system can provide access to algorithms, both as modifiable source code (where possible) and fully integrated executable Algorithm Plugin Packages (APPs). This enables researchers to download publically released versions of the processing algorithms and easily reproduce the processing remotely, while interacting with the ACPS. The algorithms can be modified allowing better experimentation and rapid improvement. The modified algorithms can be easily integrated back into the production system for large scale bulk processing to evaluate improvements. The system includes complete provenance tracking of algorithms, data and the entire processing environment. The origin of any data or algorithms is recorded and the entire history of the processing chains are stored such that a researcher can understand the entire data flow. Provenance is captured in a form suitable for the system to guarantee scientific reproducability of any data product it distributes even in cases where the physical data products themselves have been deleted due to space constraints. We are currently working on Semantic Web ontologies for representing the various provenance information. A new web site focusing on consolidating informaon about the measurement, processing system, and data access has been established to encourage interaction with the overall scientific community. We will describe the system, its data processing capabilities, and the methods the community can use to interact with the standard interfaces of the system.

Tilmes, Curt A.↗

Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) L-Band Microwave Radiometer Post-Launch Calibration Upgrade

Current performance and existing problems in SMAP radiometer L1B_TB version 3 data product are described. The post-launch calibration algorithm has been updated by calibrating the three calibration parameters (the equivalent noise temperature of the noise diode, the offset of the reference load, and the antenna gain) jointly by using the global ocean and CS with both 110o and 180o pitch maneuvers after the reflector emissivity is calibrated. The results show that both calibration drift during eclipse season and bias over CS are removed. The RMSDs of the calibration drift over both the global ocean and CS are less than 0.1 K, and the goals of the calibration algorithm upgrade are achieved for coming L1B_TB version 4 data release.

Validation↗

Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) L-Band Microwave Radiometer Post-Launch Calibration Revisit: Approach and Performance

The soil moisture active passive (SMAP) microwave radiometer is a fully-polarimetric L -band radiometer flown on the SMAP satellite in a 6 AM /6 PM sun-synchronous orbit at 685-km altitude. After the SMAP L1B_TB data product version 4 was released in 2018, the radiometer has undergone further calibration and validation. The goal is to reduce the difference between antenna temperature of ascending and descending orbits during the eclipse, and to reduce the dips in the calibration drift over the cold sky (CS) during the eclipse seasons in 2017 and 2018. The postlaunch calibration algorithm has been revisited by retrieving all of the calibration parameters simultaneously with two different options for the hot calibration source (the global ocean, or the radiometer internal reference load). The performance of the two options are compared here. The option with the radiometer internal reference load has been chosen by the SMAP science team for data release version 5. In addition, a correction offset is applied to the input signal to account for offsets during the early-mission stages with the SMAP synthetic aperture radar transmitter operating alongside the radiometer.

calibration↗